I would imagine their biggest concern is whether or not they think the HL2 experience can really be had on XBox.

I don't think that console-only people actually could ever appreciate HL2. Console people have never seemed to be ones to appreciate innovative gameplay, great AI, or the very latest bleeding-edge graphics.Hence why they're so excited about Halo 2.

I really hope the Phantom comes through. It will cancel my plans to buy an old 486 DX4 to play X-Com, Red Baron, Monkey Island, Syndicate, System Shock, and all the old games that don't work on XP, not to mention all the abandonware goodness out there

Though this is certainly off topic, have you tried changing the compatibility setting?Worked for me with Fallout.

Seriously. The Reds beating anyone? Let alone the Yankees. I've lived in Cincinnati my whole life and I can't remember the last time the Reds didn't suck.

There was a little thing called the "semi finals" that they got into a few years ago. I was at the game when they beat the Dodgers.

Maybe. I just like blasting my Reds because, well, they usually deserve it.

Understandable. I've been a Reds fan since I attended my first major league baseball game (which was at Riverfront, RIP), and even I can admit they usually tend to suck. But good things come to those who wait. Hell, look at the Cubs.... or maybe that's not a good example anymore.Though I think they've been doing quite well for themselves this season, with Dunn and Boone doing as well as they have at the plate. Hell, they've even had a winning record once or twice!

nin-I'm certainly no bartender, but I would guess that it's more than likely something the government charges businesses that sell alcohol. The thing is, that with sales taxed, the government taxes the business, not the consumer. It's the business that in turn taxes the consumer. It's possible that only a few places actually charge the tax. What state is it you live in?Also, liquor tends to be referred to as "alcohol" more often than beer.

Oh gee. Yeah. Out of the 76 bats he could have used, he just "happened" to pick up the corked one. That was unmarked. On a day when batting practice took place with no fans present.I fail to see how this is even remotely believable.

I think you're a little taken with the buzzwords Xom. SYSTEMATIC LEVEL DESIGN!

"Systemic Level Design" is the name for it. What in the hell else would I call it, that wouldn't take up several sentences?

ADJUSTABLE TRANSPARENT HUD!

And what in the hell would I call a HUD with adjustable transparency besides a "hud with adjustable transparency"?These are not buzzwords. This is english.

But saying a game "has" something, implying that others don't, is sort of silly. Many games now, perhaps taking a nod from DX, have more open-ended styles of play.

Absolutely no action or FPS game to date has met the same standard of open problem solving that Deus Ex has.And if you say GTA 3, I'll laugh at you.

They were hampered by the lack of a real physics system,

There were very few, if any, real physics engines when DX was released.

Greatest game ever made? That's a pretty silly statement, as everyone has their favorites, it's a very subejctive determination as to what's the "greatest." It was, objectively, a great and well-put together game.

No, it was the best game ever made, and anyone who disagrees has bad taste. I'm not sure why people people even try to argue with me about this issue. Getting me to say that DX was anything less is like converting a Cardinal to Islam.

Picture what it would be like to play in a huge cardboard box and you'll understand what the level design is like in Deus Ex.

Yes. It's a cardboard box. A big fucking empty, open cardboard box. As opposed to Doom or Quake where you're on rails at all times.DX uses SYSTEMATIC level design. It employs a large open area, sets rules, and allows the player to choose their own path through it. That is what makes Deus Ex the greatest game ever made.

DX2 and HL2 are closer in terms of design and gameplay than DX and HL, from the way it sounds. HL2 seems to be taking more to DX's "solve things your own way" approach, and DX2 is taking out the skill system and replacing it with a deeper augmentation system.The difference is in that HL2 revolves around the static character Gordon Freeman, while DX2 allows you to play a character of your own design.

And anyone who thought Deus Ex sucked is wrong. Anyone who knows me knows how much of a DX fanboy I am, and that there is no possible circumstance in which I would back down on this statement. So don't bother replying.

Of course, they could forsee the possibility of giving rights to everyone. They aren't retarded. For example, they knew giving women the right to vote would take power away from men. Everytime Jefferson punished a slave he owned, a small part of him knew it was wrong. They aren't amoral either. And if his slave could vote. He'd vote Jefferson right out of power.

Though this has no real bearing on the subject at hand, I'd like to note that Jefferson was in fact uncommonly humane to his slaves. Archaeologists have studied Jefferson's plantation and found that they had their own small houses and material posessions, such as some fine china. Their lives were roughly on the same level as that of a lower-class citizen.Jefferson really only kept slaves because he knew he had to in order to run his plantation and remain rich, not because he was a racist. I'm of course not trying to justify his keeping of slaves in any way, I'm just clearing up that he wasn't some horribly sadistic person that saw black people as being nothing above dogs, like many plantation owners were.

I think what many people are forgetting is that the "founding fathers" were upper-class citizens. As one of my college professors put it, when we broke off from England, we simply "replaced one group of rich guys with another group of rich guys". Strangely enough, this has been the way our government has always gone. The upper class are the only people represented in highest branches of government.